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Review Club #4 – Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

I liked the movie. It was quite interesting on how they had mixed Gods with humans, centaurs, a part-cyclops like Tyson, a cyclops and a son of Poseidon, Percy Jackson, who is half human. There’s another character, Clarisse, the daughter of war god Ares, and then Annabeth, the daughter of Athena. Clarisse is sent out on a quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece when the Talia guardian tree is dying due to a poison that was inflicted by Luke, the son of Hermes. His desire is to bring back the titan Kronos in hopes of destroying the Olympians. Clarisse is sent out on a mission to retrieve the Fleece, but Percy and his friends Annabeth and Grover, who is a satyr, decide to go after it as well. I thought it was quite annoying how Annabeth continued to be harsh towards Tyson, who had only one eye. Yes she had a grudge against the cyclops’ who had killed her friend Talia, but she shouldn’t have taken it out on him. Despite the fact that he was a son of Poseidon and a cyclops who appeared to clearly be ordinary (despite the one-eye thing). I could also tell that Clarisse had a “winning” ego and thought of herself to be the “top dog”. But, as the movie went on, I was pleased to see that her heart had slowly begun to change.

I liked this movie because it showed that you may appear to be different then everybody else, but that does not prove that you are what you appear to be. “Nothing is what it seems” is a quote that fits right in the puzzle of this movie. Percy Jackson is a story of teens going on a dangerous adventure with people they did not wish to be with at first, but had a change of heart in the end. I wish that all teens will watch this movie and take it to consideration towards racism. Appearance is just the cover of the book. You must read the content in order to have full rights to judge.

One of the things that I don’t like about many sequels is the fact that the movies aren’t made to stand alone. It’s perfectly acceptable when a movie in a franchise has some connection to the previous movies, but when watching this one, I felt that it relied too much on the events of the first movie. I realize that this is mainly due to the way the books were written, but had I not watched The Lightning Thief right before watching this one, I think I would have felt completely lost.

Lately, Hollywood has gone a bit overboard with their love of YA books being turned into films. Ever since Harry Potter became such a success, they have been churning out adaptation after adaptation in order to try and find the next YA franchise that they can milk for as many movies and money as possible. Few have been overly successful (with The Hunger Games being the most successful so far).

This movie and its franchise is a retelling of the history of the Greek Gods and some scenes work much better than others. I can’t say I was bored with this movie, but I also can’t say that I was overly entertained either.

The characters were ok, but when comparing this to the previous movie in the franchise, this one just doesn’t pull its weight at all and feels quite mediocre.

The effects aren’t done so well and some of it really looks and feels like they used archaic FX methods which detracts from the believability of the story and brings us back to reality instead of keeping us in this magical world on screen.

I’m not sure if they plan to continue the franchise or not, but I still would be interested in seeing where the story goes because there is potential here.

5/10

Continuing on, here’s my dear hubby, Francois (who’s French accent you can just hear while reading, hehe), from over at FrankishNet:

Not having seen the books, everything that happens in the Percy Jackson movie is always a surprise to me. And generally speaking, the story told by Sea of Monsters was really good.

What I liked about the movie? First, the fact that it layers the myths and legends of the Greek gods with our own world and reality. And they do touch the concept that these supernatural creatures are veiled from normal mortal eyes, without going at length to explain it. It’s quick, subtle, and works very well. One reference here is the scene in Washington when the barista was making the coffees with 6 arms in the the satyr’s point of view, but only 2 arms seen from a regular customer.

I also liked the struggles of personalities for each characters, and their development. Although, being a double-edge blade, this also made some characters seem fake in their reactions. The Scion of War being overly aggressive and rude was obviously destined to learn some humility by the end of the movie. Percy’s gorgeous follower suddenly turns out to be a foul racist, to later on realize that not all cyclops’ are alike. A lesson that should have been learned given their very nature (scion of gods, and all…), but a teenager movie calls for character development and personality struggles, so there…

I loved the humor (Aye Aye!… Huh… sorry) and loved the amount of it.

What I did not like is what you usually expect from this class of movie. That “class” being Fantasy movie based off novels and destined to younger audience, like Narnia (bullet points incoming!!).

Plot Holes! Small but frequent:

After Percy conjured a storm to shake the boat around… the manticore beast is still sleeping… Really?

Also… Why did Luke hang up their bag there? WHO DOES THAT? You capture a good guy with a backpack, who happens to tell you he swung by Hermes before coming… And you DO NOT SEARCH THEIR BELONGINGS? No… Luke is not that dumb. That is a huge plot hole… I assume it could only have been in the book too.

More of this. Last combat scene. Why does Percy have his sword in his pocket? Luke knows what the sword looks like. They tied him up, and did not take the sword? These bad guys were really asking for it…

Percy conjured a storm and a minute after the sky is clear blue. Why? Shouldn’t they be slowly retracting, going back where they came from, as clouds do? That would have been more realistic.

And Luke… He got a sense that something was going wrong, since there was a scene of him looking up and going “Why the heck the boat is rocking?” Yet… They don’t go below deck to check it out. No. “The sea is going nuts… It is probably not related to the 2 scions of Poseidon I got below deck. SURELY NOT”. Dumbass…

Kronos… Didn’t you learn the first time around to CHEW your FOOD. Idiot titan, you deserve to be cut in pieces.

Last thing I didn’t like… SO MANY HOT LADIES, NOT A SINGLE KISS. I was saddened by the last scene… I guess Percy doesn’t get involved with his sidekicks just yet…

So all in all, very nice movie. If you can overlook plot holes here and there, and survive the satyr satires (hee hee), I was rightly entertained. I would rate it a solid 8/10 in its category (PG13 Fantasy based on novels), and a generous 6/10 overall movie.

What a fun little film this was. Not as good as the first one, but I wasn’t really surprised by that, they rarely are. While it’s true that movies based on YA books need to pretty much die out now (I stopped paying attention after the first Hunger Games film), I enjoyed these books very much, so I really couldn’t help myself. And I’m glad I finally got around to it. It’s not perfect, there are some groan-inducing moments, some “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” moments, and at least one moment where what happened shouldn’t have happened (to be as vague as possible, I’ll just say the healing waters moment near the end). I missed Pierce Brosnan in the role of Chiron, but Anthony Stewart Head (Giles!!!) filled his hooves perfectly. The boys were cute, the girls pretty, the action fun, and the villains villainous. All in all, a fun teen fantasy film. I give it a solid 8/10.

M.

And that’s it for this outing! Join us again in 2 weeks when we review Jessabelle! 🙂

10 comments on “Review Club #4 – Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters”

Reblogged this on and commented:
Check out this week’s Review Club over at Vampire Placebo. A bunch of us all wrote our thoughts about Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013). tnx to Mel for organizing this. For those interested, the next film in 2 weeks time is Jessabelle (2014). Dunno how I’m gonna get thru that horror film 🙂 (I’ll find a way)

Movies, shows, books, music, games, fashion, makeup, food, I love it all! I'm a 33 year old mother of a rambunctious 5 year old boy. I'm often bed-bound because of illness, so I have a lot of time to spend on entertainment. I enjoy reading all kinds of blogs with top 10 lists and the like, but am often frustrated when the top spots are reserved for the same old stuff that, most of the time, I don't really like. So I decided to start a blog of my own, and throw my two cents out into the gaping sea that is the internet. I'm really enjoying writing these posts, so I hope they reach at least a few people who will enjoy them too :-)
M.